1/17/19

It’s been a year of blogging once a week, and I finally ran out of topics. So what should I do? Shamelessly self promote, of course.

Hot off the electronic press is Issue 8 of Broadswords and Blasters where my story “Temporally Out of Order” appears!

I’m pretty stoked. This was my first paid sale (though my second paid sale was published last November). In addition, this was the first story I started when beginning this writing adventure about a year and half ago. I got stuck about halfway through, so it ended up being the second story I finished. Regardless, it holds an honored place in my heart for starting me on this writing journey.

I’m glad it found a home, and I’m glad it was with Broadswords and Blasters. The magazine hearkens back to the pulp fiction days of speculative fiction. I thought my story would be a perfect fit, so I’m delighted the editors thought so too.

This story also means a little something more to me because I borrowed the characters names from a couple friends of mine (with their consent). Oddly, when I did so, those names were meant to be placeholders. As soon as I included them though, the words flowed to the page rather easily. The characters themselves don’t resemble my friends, but that didn’t seem to matter.

Because of the success I had once I named the characters after friends, I’ve continued to use that technique in other stories. Each time I’ve found naming characters after friends made the story easier to write. I don’t do this for every story, but I used the technique for both of the two fiction stories I’ve sold to date. That may tell me something right there.

Let me know in the comments how you name your characters. Do you borrow from friends and family? Do you make them up on the fly, or do you put a lot of thought into each name?

And if you’re interested, go buy Issue 8 and leave a review!